Otterday! And Open Thread

Who’s loving the change in the weather? This little otter, today’s Open Thread host, looks like it’s either praying for rain, or giving thanks for it.

Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a good book (or a bad one)? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? What have you created lately? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?

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17 replies

Voting below the line is looking very challenging today. So many sociopaths, only one position 77 on the paper. There was a site where you could mock up your ballot and print it as a cheat sheet, but I can’t find it. Does anyone know of useful tools out there or are we sandgropers to save the Senate armed only with a pencil?

I am trying out Toastmasters – 2nd visit next week. It is on a uni campus as I can go at lunchtime on my day off while the kids are at school. Which means most of the members are students roughly half my age, but that didn’t feel like a barrier. Now that I’m not attending play groups and parents groups I don’t have any regular in-person clubs and this felt like a nice crowd to see a few times a month while improving my speaking skills as well – fingers crossed!
I trust everyone in Western Australia is remembering to vote!

Robyn, I’ve been meaning to try out Toastmasters as well at my uni. My dad used to go, he has this whole row of trophies he won. Guess I inherited the speaking gene from him.*Next part of comment talks about violence against women and POC*
Here in Brisbane a fourth student has been murdered in as many months, which is all a bit disconcerting. Three of the students were women, three were non-white. And then one of the clubs up here goes and puts up a poster where a young Asian woman dressed as a sexy easter bunny is being viewed through the cross-hairs of a gun. Nice work, Brisbane.
But in more pleasant news, I’m having some lunch with friends today for my birthday, and then spending the evening watching Buffy with my person, so that’ll be lovely.

I used to do Toastmasters. I won the State final and came second in the National back when the century had a 19 in it.
We can have our own Hoyden’s Toast.
Sunset, please save the Senate.
In other racist news,(no warnings required) my kinder Committee members ARE VERY CONCERNED I am not holding Easter Egg hunts to celebrate Easter with my kiddies. It has been suggested that Easter Egg Hunts are going to be mandatory in the future, in order to protect Traditional Australian Values which are under threat from political correctness gone mad. My Jewish friend suggests we do a matzoh bread hunt instead. It’s a good idea, but I don’t know how it’s is going to work for my Hindi and Muslim kids. I’m thinking I’ll agree if everyone hosts a fullscale Seder and we put up a big poster saying “May the Angel of death pass over your home and slay the children of your enemies”; and then we have “Have a good fast” up for a month during Ramadan, followed by 3 days of feasting. We should also have the children chuck food colouring at each other for Holi. We might need to put up a few Chinese and Japanese shrines as well and burn offerings at them.
You know what? This is starting to work for me.

Happy Birthday Jo! Well spotted TT.
Eilish that sounds like a fantastic idea. I think you could also include Kwanzaa, paint actual eggs for Greek Orthodox easter, do Chinese New Year next year, throw in Saturnalia for good measure, Diwali, and Hanukka.
I was thinking about this the other day. I know some vocal Christians with media platforms like to claim that Australia isn’t religious enough anymore but there is only one holiday period that changes every year that every has to adhere to regardless of their beliefs.

I would do Succot, as well. I love cubby houses. And Beltane. The children can jump through two huge bonfires – it will be awesome. I am totally onto the Chinese/Vietnamese new year: I successfully adorned the kinder in dragons and “Chuc Mun Nam” signs last year, but one of my colleagues actively kiboshed it this year.(It’s too late! It’s the Year of the Horse!) Then put up a six foot bunny for Easter. We can’t do Greek eggs because we’ve got kids who are allergic to eggs. Going to google Diwali now. I think doing Saturnalia might make my critics suspect me of irony or other subversive activities. I don’t want to blow my cover. As for Hanukkah – do you mean instead of Christmas? Brilliant! I wonder why that didn’t occur to me before.
Happy birthday to Jo from me, as well. I apologise for missing that one – I, who prides myself on identifying subtext! Which Buffy did you watch?

I had a lovely start to the day. Mads was in a super-cuddly mood. She’s usually keen on wrapping herself around my ankles (especially when I’m wearing black – funny that) or getting up on the bench for a big head-rub, but she doesn’t usually want to be cuddled. This morning she wanted it, and was all purrs and head-butts and kneading on my arm for maybe five minutes. I haz a happy. 🙂

Ditto on the *faint*.
Could. Not. Ever.
“Look, we’re not going to be showing normal-sized women on the catwalk; that’s never going to happen; we’re not going to not retouch. All that kind of stuff is a whole other issue,” she said.
So says Jackie Frank, of Marie Claire.
Let’s look at some ‘normal-sized’ women.http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/female-bodies-a-weighty-issue/
A whole range of stores and clothes makers makes lots of money out of selling clothes to ‘normal-sized’ women. I can personally recommend Target’s double button jeans.(In store now. Particularly good if you are a short-arse.) I won’t advertise the expensive lines of clothing I am privileged enough to be able to afford because of my hetero-sexual partner’s superior earning power (I used to earn more than him 20 years ago. Now, I am one step away from being listed as his dependant on our tax forms) but I will point out there are a large number of designers and clothes makers who are making a killing selling clothes that fit ‘normal-sized’ women.
What is this bullshit?
I remember vividly asking in a local shop that caters for rich fatties whether a particular brand came in size 16. The answer: “the brand doesn’t want to be seen as catering to that market.” Well I guess they just missed selling me their ridiculously priced frock that I was prepared to pay for my sister’s wedding. How did that work for them? (I bought a dress from a we-are-not-ashamed-to-make-clothes-for-rich-fatties brand. Who won?)
Fashion is farkakt. It’s more important to bludgeon women with conflicting images of how horrible their bodies are than it is to sell clothes? REALLY? I am now completely confused about capitalism.
Frank’s use of the term ‘normal-sized’ is particularly charged given the awareness of commenters on The InterNet re. the use of the term ‘real women’ to describe fatties rather slenders. She knows that fatties outnumber slenders, but she is still committed to a market agenda that aggressively promotes an image that is unattainable.
I am also really pissed off that every time this issue comes up (i.e. every fashion week) the designers and magazine spokespeople punish and blame the models. The young woman who is currently being criticised for being too thin, when she knows that everyone she has worked with has praised her for losing weight and gaining the desired look, is quite rightly justified in being pissed off for being made a scapegoat.
How do we fix this?

I’ve noticed over the last week or so that the Ender’s Game movie has now made its move to “on demand” cable movie channels, where I will be just as likely to watch it as I was when it was in cinemas i.e. not at all (due to my strong desire to avoid contributing to the profits bottom line for Orson Scott Card).
I’m quite pleased by seeing how quickly the movie has moved to cable and thus shortly thereafter to DVD. OSC has alienated what could have been a core audience for him via his reactionary/fundamentalist views on social change, and that prompts me only to reach for my tiny violin.
By the time Ender’s Game turns up on my movie package where I don’t pay any extra to watch it compared to what I’m watching already, I probably will make time to see it just so I can see how they manage the Battle Room scenes.
Other than that, I’d be far more interested philosophically in the ramifications of an adaptation of Speaker For The Dead, but I doubt that will ever happen.